** Exane BNP Paribas says there are glimmers of hope for the ailing chemicals sector as it projects "more of a slow trot than a galloping recovery"
** Exane sees positive signs in the start of a rate-cut induced recovery of construction activity in Europe and potentially also North America
** The broker also points to a normalization of European energy prices, with the price gap between Europe and other regions back to three-year lows
** However, it expects the demand crisis and overcapacity pressures to persist for years to come
** "Without an inflection point in sight, the most likely timeframe for recovery is H2," the boker says
** The broker says it prefers shares with European construction exposure, pricing power as well as undervalued cyclicality and cuts Evonik EVKn.DE to "neutral" from "outperform" while upgrading Wacker Chemie WCHG.DE to "neutral" from "underperform"
COMPANY
NEW RATING
OLD RATING
Azelis Group
outperform
outperform
Bayer
outperform
outperform
Brenntag
neutral
neutral
CF Industries
neutral
neutral
Clariant
outperform
outperform
Evonik
neutral
outperform
IMCD
outperform
outperform
K+S
underperform
underperfrom
Lanxess
neutral
neutral
Mosaic Company
outperform
outperform
Nutrien
outperform
outperform
Umicore
neutral
neutral
Wacker Chemie
neutral
underperform
Yara
underperform
underperform
(Reporting by Simon Ferdinand Eibach)
((Simonferdinand.eibach@thomsonreuters.com))